Happily Ever After
by Madripoor Rose
Summary: Pure romantic Kitty and Piotr fluff
1. Chapter 1

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

BY MADRIPOOR ROSE

CHAPTER ONE: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Disclaimer: The X Men are the property of Marvel Entertainment. This is a work of fanfiction, no copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: Spoilers for Astonishing X Men up to 14 and Colossus Bloodline.

Kitty was starting to worry. After the X Men had returned from the Breakworld, where Ord learned an important little lesson about self-fulfilling prophecy...Peter had been acting strange. He was painting again, which was a good sign. Painting almost obsessively, which was not.

She'd caught him having a serious conversation in the Blackbird hangar with Logan. Neither of them would tell her what they'd been talking about. Even admitting her concerns to Logan and giving him the Bambi-eyes treatment, lower lip trembling as she confessed that Peter was brooding and it was scaring her didn't work. Logan would just tighten his mouth and tell her that she had nothing to worry about but he didn't want to get involved.

The sex was still amazing, but she kept waking up alone in bed, and she didn't like that one bit.

The day Peter went into New York without her was the last straw. She slouched around the mansion, terrorizing the students since she couldn't enjoy what was supposed to be her day off, and plotted revenge.

At bedtime, she brushed her hair a hundred strokes until it fell over her shoulders in a silken veil of copper-shot burnished bronze. She touched perfume to the hollow of her throat, between her breasts, the inside of her wrists, and behind her knees. Then she slipped into an ice-blue satin negligee.

And curled up in bed with Lockheed, a bag of Cape Cod White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, and Naomi Novik's Throne of Jade. She fed Lockheed popcorn and read aloud to him. They were at the part where Captain Laurence and Temeraire had just reached China and the court of the Celestial dragons.

An hour later than the time she usually went to Peter's room to fool around, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," she called, and took a deep breath as the door opened and Peter stood silhouetted in the doorway.

"Katya...it's twelve thirty..." he trailed off.

"Is it?" she asked innocently. "I lost track of time." She set her book down on the bed beside her, and sat up a little straighter, stretching her arms over her head. Then rolled her shoulders, and watched Peter's gaze drift to her cleavage in the deep V neckline of her nightgown.

"Shall I join you, tonight?" he asked huskily, and took a few steps toward her, confident of an affirmative answer.

"I don't think so." The hurt, confused look on his face almost made her relent. "I'm not really in the mood. And I wanted to finish rereading Throne of Jade. Okay?"

"Okay," he said quietly.

Kitty threw the covers back and sat up, making sure the fall of the sheets and the hiked up skirt of the negligee made an enticing display of her bare legs all the way up to mid-thigh as she got out of bed, then walked over to him. She put her arms around his neck, bounced up on tiptoe, and kissed him goodnight. A deep and passionate kiss.

Then she pulled away, turned her back, and went back to bed, picking up her book. "G'nite."

"Sleep well, Katya," he said helplessly, and closed her door behind him.

Kitty tried to find a little escapism in the historical fantasy intrigue, but she found herself rereading the first trip into the city, and the dragon translating for his captain as Laurence tried to buy a porcelain vase with British gold three times without following it. She put the book down again.

"Damn it," she said softly. She'd meant tonight as a wake-up call. Vamp it up, tease him, remind Peter of exactly what he had, and remind him that two could play at this withdrawing game. And yes, he was doing what she said she wanted. But part of her had hoped that he'd make the next move. "Damn him. He's shutting me out again. There's something going on with him, and he won't talk to me. He won't let me help. Lockheed, I've been chasing that man since I was thirteen years old, and I finally caught him...so why do I feel like I should tag along after him and do something outrageous to get his attention?"

Lockheed, half inside the popcorn bag and munching happily, didn't answer.

That was all right. It was a rhetorical question.

"And to be clear, Katya. You are not crowding me...nearly enough."

She saw Peter at breakfast the next morning. Then there were classes. She caught up on her grading and lesson plans at lunch. After dinner she had a counseling session with one of the students, and then she went to Peter's room.

He was sitting at the easel, brush in hand. She frowned, and walked over to his bed, flopping down. At least the canvas was a bucolic pastoral scene and not another nightmare self-portrait. To her surprise, Peter finished his happy little tree, and packed up, putting the paints away and wiping his hands.

"You have finished your book?"

"Yeah."

He came over and sat beside her on the bed. She climbed into his lap and kissed him, very thoroughly. He pulled back, cupped her face in his hand, and looked into her eyes. Kitty let out a small, involuntary sigh of relief at the feeling that he was really seeing her this time.

"I know I have been self-absorbed these past few days," he began apologetically. "Forgive me if I have been inattentive?"

She kissed him again.

"I've been doing some thinking," he smiled. "I know, I am the brawn of this operation and I should leave all the thinking to you, since you are a genius," he joked, "but there was something I needed to work out."

Kitty nodded. Crowding him without smothering him. Crowding him just enough. So all she asked him was, "did you get it figured out?"

"Da, I think so, yes."

She wondered if it had anything to do with Breakworld, and Ord's idiot Timeshadow readers misinterpreting the X Men fighting amid chaos on the Breakworld, so they sent Ord to destroy mutants and the X Men which pissed off a new mutant terrorist group enough to steal a spaceship and invade Breakworld so the X Men followed to fight them amid chaos...

Two years of imprisonment and torture as Ord's scapegoat due to something that fundamentally stupid was enough to depress anyone.

"So...we're okay?" she asked tentatively.

"We're okay."

"Okay. Cool." She started pulling his shirt off. They undressed each other, kissing, stretched out on the bed together and made out, then Peter moved to the foot of the bed and transformed. The bed creaked ominously, but held.

Kitty began to grin. The first time they'd done this, Peter had been delighted to learn that none of her other boyfriends...that there was still a special first they could share. When he'd transformed, Kitty'd made a comment that he was kinkier than she'd expected. Since Peter returned and they requited their relationship, she'd heard a couple of crude comments from the students. Speculation on power sex and an organic steel partner. Peter had raised his eyebrows and reminded her that he didn't need to breathe while armored.

She closed her eyes and snuggled back into the pillows while Peter hooked her knees over his shoulders.

"Hold on, Katya."

"Hey, I'm very good in bed, I hardly ever fall out any more," she protested in the same playful tone.

Later, she reciprocated with a phase job. Phasing back and forth rapidly so the firm grip of her fingers wrapped around him dissolved and reappeared in a pulsating massage that reduced Peter to broken whimpers of pleasure.

They lay together, quietly sharing the afterglow. After a while, Peter spoke again. "I've been painting, and rebuilding my portfolio. Yesterday I went into the city and made the rounds. Peter Nicholas' contacts at the galleries, to see if they are still interested in my artwork."

"Were they?"

"I still have a foot in the door," he sighed. "It will not be easy, but I think I could make a living from my art, if I worked at it."

"You do paint a purty pitcher. So...exploring your options? That's the thinking you've been doing?"

"Thinking about the future." Peter shifted beside her on the bed. She kissed the nape of his neck, because it was there. "I'm not sure I will always be here at the school. There are other things I want in life, and now that I have a second chance, I mean to pursue them."

Kitty's stomach turned over. He wanted to leave the school? "Like what?" she asked, uncertainly.

"I'd like to paint. Live a normal life...or what passes for such. A home of my own. Maybe an apartment in the city, maybe a small house in the country where I could have a garden." Peter took a breath. "Children...someday."

"I can just see you with eight kids climbing all over you yelling, papa, papa."

"Eight?" he laughed.

"Four boys, four girls, a nice even number. What? I thought you wanted a large family."

"Da. But since you would be mama, how many children do you want, Katya?"

A warmth spread through her. "Hmm. I had it all planned out when I was thirteen...wonder if that notebook I wrote all over the covers of is still in the attic...two. A boy and girl. Andrei and Anastasia."

"Anastasia?"

"Thirteen! Now, I'll grant you, I realize that Anastasia Petrova Pryde-Rasputin sounds like the heroine of a bad historical romance novel."

"Stasia," Peter said thoughtfully. "Stasia Petrova, you stop that this instant!"

"Aw geez," Kitty sighed. "I shouldn't have told you."

"I like it."

"Because you are a gigantic goofball," she informed him. "Yeah, two kids, close in age because being an only child stunk sometimes. Maybe more, depending. If Andy and Annie are twins, they'll want a little brother or sister to torture."

"So, three children, maybe four?"

"Yeah. And I know it isn't exactly a Russian name, but I'd kind of like to name a son after my dad..." Okay, Kitty, she told herself, you're getting way too serious about a bedtime game of Let's Pretend We're Playing House.

"We don't have to give the children Russian names, though I do like Andrei and Anastasia," he said quickly.

"So, Andy and Stasia are running around, Carmen's in his crib, you're painting, where am I? Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making borscht?"

"Where would you like to be?"

She thought about it. "Huh. I never finished college...I was going for an engineering degree. I wouldn't mind going back to school. After that...we could be a real modern family, you could stay home with the kids while I continue to be an X Man?"

"If you'd like."

"And maybe when the kids are a little older...politics. The first female Jewish mutant President."

Peter chuckled. "You would be very good for the country."

"Hey, if you're gonna dream, dream big," she quipped.

He said, quietly. "And you know, any children of mine will have part of Rasputin's soul."

Kitty snorted. "Lilith. Ogun. Any children of mine are likely to have a genetic predisposition toward being possessed too," she sighed. "At least they won't die in a sentinel-run concentration camp this time around. The world's never been safe, Peter. We love them, we teach them right from wrong, we train them to be competent adults, and we hope. That's all parents can do."

He kissed her, and she kissed him back, and she completely forgot about their pillow talk.

A few days passed. The X Men went to help with some emergency flooding, and joined the Fantastic Four fight another one of the Mole Man's creatures that came up in Central Park. Aware of what had happened the last time, Reed Richards invited them to join his press conference afterward, and it went pretty well until Johnny Storm ignited Wolverine's hair.

At the school, Kitty had exams to give and grade, and counseling sessions. Some of the kids were still having trouble with the Danger AI and Wing's death. And the usual trials and tribulations of being a mutant teenager.

Adolescence is tough enough without suddenly sprouting antlers or developing the ability to excrete an inky fluid from your pores.

She and Peter still weren't spending a lot of time together, except at night, but they'd talked. They were both just busy.

Kitty was trying to catch up on some much needed maintenance on the school's computer system when one of the students came in.

"Miss Pryde? Um, Mister Rasputin was looking for you, upstairs. He wanted you to meet him out by the lake."

"Okay, thanks Harry." She finished what she was doing, and then headed out to find Peter, wondering what was up. Breakstone Lake was still on Xavier property, but far enough away from the school itself to ensure privacy. It was a little late in the year for skinny-dipping, though, even for her Siberian born boyfriend.

She had a moment of uneasy deja vu when she spotted him, sitting on the bluff overlooking the lake, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them.

"I think it's only fair to warn you," she announced as she walked over to plop down beside him, "if you brought me out here to tell me that you met a girl on the Breakworld...I'm pushing you off of this cliff."

"What! No!" he looked startled, glancing around as if he only now realized where they were sitting. "Nyet. I just wanted to talk to you..."

"So. Talk," she said agreeably.

"No. I'm sorry, this was stupid. It's nothing, this wasn't important. I can wait. Somewhere."

Kitty's eyes narrowed. Semi-coherent babbling was her thing. He was the strong silent type, and when she was nervous, she chattered like one of Doreen's squirrels that had gotten into her Nutty Buddy candy bar stash.

"I think you should tell me what's on your mind." And that line brought a much nicer sense of deja vu.

"I love you."

"That's nice, sweetheart. I love you too. Now talk."

Peter gave her a sheepish grin, fished in the pocket of his leather jacket, and silently opened a small gray velvet ring box, holding it out to her.

Kitty looked. A plain elegant diamond set in gold.

Ooh, pretty, she thought.

And then it hit her.

A diamond ring.

Peter brought her out here to give her a diamond ring.

Peter had a long talk with Logan. Peter found out if he could support himself with his painting, and talked to her about children and the future.

And then Peter brought her out here to give her a diamond ring.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

"Katya...Katherine." Peter visibly steeled himself in a way that had nothing to do with mutant powers. He took a deep breath and started what appeared to be a well-rehearsed speech. "We've known each other since we were children, we were both children, even though you were wise beyond your years and I was a naive and callow youth. We've been friends, lovers, enemies...we broke each others' hearts, and out of the pieces, rebuilt a heart we could share. Share it with me? Marry me?"

"Oh my god," Kitty said again and Peter's face crumpled. He looked away, and so he missed it when Kitty lunged at him in a full body tackle and kissed his breath away. The ring box went flying, tumbling to land a few feet away, thankfully not over the edge of the cliff.

Peter relaxed into the kiss. It was a long, sensuous kiss, and when it was over, Kitty grinned down at him. "That was a yes, by the way."

"A yes?"

"Yes, Piotr Nikolievitch Rasputin, I will marry you. Just to be clear," she replied in a throaty purr. "I'll promise to love, honor, crowd you just enough, pester you while you're trying to paint, cheer you up out of bad moods, and give you children."

Peter kissed her again, and smiled up at her. "And I promise to love, honor, obey..."

"Obey?"

"Da."

"Obey wasn't on my list."

"I am not a fool, Katya."

"Nope. Hm. Obey."

"Cherish," he kissed her again, lightly, "try not to worry you so much, tease you out of your temper tantrums, do my very best to drop you through the mattress at least once a week, and be a good father to our children."

Kitty kissed him again, then rolled off and crawled over to retrieve the ring box. "Let's make this official."

She stood. Peter knelt before her, took her hand in his, and brushed a kiss across her knuckles before slipping the ring on her finger.

"Why don't we go back up to the school and celebrate?" he suggested, getting to his feet and brushing at the grass stains on his knees.

"A private celebration. Let's not tell anyone for a couple of days, okay?" Kitty asked.

Peter frowned. "If you wish. Logan already knows."

"Yeah. I guessed you talked to him about this. We don't have a lot of privacy, Peter. I want this, us, to be ours for a little while. Just us, just you and me. Then I'll shout it from the rooftops."

The corner of Peter's mouth turned up. "A private celebration?"

"You, Piotr Rasputin, are a romantic sap. I know you went to Gourmet Grocers this morning and you have champagne and caviar waiting."

"And some of those cheese things you like so well."

Kitty beamed. "See, I knew there was a reason I'm marrying you."

"Ah. And here I thought it was for my body."

"Oh, the bod's a bonus, but I fell in love with the whole package."

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scott Summers frowned, looking out his office window. Kitty and Peter were walking toward the house, hand in hand. Kitty broke the grip to dance in front of him, jogging backward. Laughing, Peter caught her up in his arms and kissed her, then started carrying her toward the house.

Without looking up from the computer, Emma Frost drawled, "Leave them alone, darling."

"How can we enforce rules against public displays of affection among the students if two of our teaching staff are climbing all over each other?"

"Peter just proposed and they're still rather giddy. Let them bill and coo for a few days, before the soul-deadening reality of marriage sinks in."

"Aw Emma, you're such a romantic."

"A realist, darling. Just don't congratulate the happy couple yet. They aren't announcing their engagement for a few days."

Scott turned his frown on his girlfriend. "And how did you know?" There was no answer, and Scott sighed. "Em, do we HAVE to have the personal boundaries talk again?"

She raised a delicately shaped eyebrow. "Privacy is just keeping well-intentioned secrets. You of all people should be aware of what secrets and good intentions has done to the team?"

Scott had no answer for that.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Kitty left Peter singing in the shower, and went to find Logan. Passing a couple of the kids on the stairs, she turned the stone of her engagement ring in toward her palm.

You just couldn't keep a secret secret around here, but Kitty was determined to try.

Logan was in the garage, working on his bike.

Kitty just leaned against the workbench and smiled.

"So. You two are gettin' hitched."

"Yup. Wanna see the ring?"

"Petey showed me after he bought it. Nice rock."

"It is, isn't it. And whadja two talk about?"

Logan snorted a laugh. "You ain't letting this go, are ya, half-pint?"

"Nope. I'm nosy, and I'm persistent, and the sooner you tell me, the sooner I'll go away."

Logan wiped his hands on a rag and got to his feet. "Kid just wanted a little reassurance that you wouldn't kick him to the curb if he asked. And that it was the right thing to do."

Kitty smiled. "And if you approved?" she asked softly.

Logan shrugged. "He knows that if he hurts you again, he's gonna wish we left him in Ord's rumpus room. But yeah. You make each other happy, you should be together. And I told him that when you guys set the date, I'll be best man or give you away, whatever you want."

"I think I'd like it if you gave me away. Since this is all your fault, y'know."

"My fault?"

"Oh...I seem to remember someone literally throwing me at Peter in the Danger Room. Over and over. Ya big hairy matchmaker you."

"What can I say? I'm a romantic at heart," the government-created mutant killing machine said, deadpan.

Kitty couldn't help herself. She hugged him.

"Aw, no, I'm a mess," he chided her, but hugged back. "You call Ororo yet? Or Rach?"

"Nope. Peter and I are keeping it to ourselves for a while. You know how weddings flip everybody out. I think I will tell Storm next. Just the most important people in our lives."

"How about your ma?"

Kitty froze and looked away. "Yeah. I'm probably going to have to tell her that I'm getting married, huh?"

"She's your mom, she'll probably want to know, yeah." Logan studied her for a long moment. "Hey, you don't have to call tonight. Like you said, weddings flip people out, and the mother of the bride flips higher than everybody. Take yer time. Have a nice long engagement, call her when you're ready to set a date."

Kitty smiled slightly. "No, she'll really flip if I leave her out. And she is my mom. But I'll call in a couple weeks."

"Well. There you go, then."

"Logan?"

"Yeah Kitty?"

"Peter and I are going to get married."

"And I'm real happy for ya, punkin."

"I just...kinda need to say it out loud. I can't believe it's real."

XxXxXxXxXxX

After showering and making his bed, Peter left his room and headed downstairs to the art studio to get some work done. Final projects were trickling in from his students, and he had grading to do. A few of the kids showed talent, but none of them were interested in art as anything but a hobby.

It took longer than it should because he kept getting distracted with daydreams of his Katya. She'd said yes. He'd finally worked up the nerve, and she said yes.

For a long time he'd worried that marrying Kitty and having children would be selfish, that it wouldn't be fair to her, or their children, with the threat of Rasputin's Curse. Despite Mikhail's urging that he sire a large family to water down the bloodline again, before his brother sacrificed himself...maybe it would be better to live a solitary life, and when he died the bloodline would end.

And yet, he had always wanted children. And didn't he deserve to be happy?

Life was dangerous. Their lives, more dangerous than most. And if he had learned anything in his time in the X Men, it was that the future wasn't set in stone, and fate and destiny were fluid.

So he'd started painting, so he would have something to show, and started making the rounds of the art world in New York. There had been a brief period, when suffering from amnesia, he had called himself Peter Nicholas and was living in the city. Working as a building superintendent and painting. It had been his growing acclaim as an artist that allowed the X Men to find him and restore his memory.

There was an encouraging amount of interest in his art. It wouldn't be easy, but the possibility of earning a living if they left the school...of making his own way instead of living off Xavier...was there.

It had taken a bit more courage to approach Logan.

The feral mutant had appointed himself Kitty's father figure not long after the girl joined the team. Years and the loss of her father had only strengthened their bond.

Peter had found Logan in the Blackbird hangar. Not that the Canadian was doing any work on the jet plane. It was one of the places on the grounds that Logan went to hide when the students were getting on his nerves.

"Logan, may I have a word with you?" Peter had asked after finding the Wolverine sitting on a lawn chair with his feet up on his beer cooler, reading a Sports Illustrated. "It is about Katya."

"What about Kit?"

Peter had leaned against the wing of the Blackbird...so he could run, if necessary. "Katya and I have been together for a little over a year. Though I have loved her for much longer. I think it is time...I made an honest woman of her, as the saying goes. I want to marry her."

Instead of the explosion he'd been half-dreading, Peter had been treated to one of Logan's rare, genuinely delighted smiles.

"You're finally gonna pop the question? Well hell, it's about damn time."

"You understand, Logan, that I came to you in her father's place, to ask your blessing." Peter had said quietly.

"Russkie...you and Kitty, nobody else can make either one 'a'you happier or more miserable. If that ain't the definition of true love, I'll eat my hat. Congratulations, kid. Help yourself to a brew."

That was when Kitty oh so innocently wandered in, oh so innocently asked what they had been talking about. Over. And over. And over. And over.

Later, Logan had taken him away to Harry's Hideaway for that celebratory beer.

It had taken Peter a few days to work out how to propose. He wasn't an eloquent speaker, so he'd drafted several versions of asking her before settling on one that sounded romantic and corny enough. He'd bought the ring. Spent the night placating a disgruntled Kitty who had noticed his preoccupation, and sounded her out about kids and the future.

He was still kicking himself for proposing on the same bluff where he'd broken up with her, so many years ago. But she had said yes.

She had said yes.

He and Katya were getting married.

He stared into space for another twenty minutes, a foolish grin on his face, then shook his head and went back to work.

XxXxXxXxXxX

To Be Continued


	2. Announcement

HAPPILY EVER AFTER 

BY MADRIPOOR ROSE

CHAPTER TWO: THE ANNOUNCEMENT

Rachel Grey raised an eyebrow as she entered the Yellow Parlor she'd been directed to, with Ororo Munroe and Kurt Wagner. The walls were plastered a richly tinted amber, and the gold damask curtains gave the room its name. It wasn't a room the X Men usually used for meetings, and in truth, this looked more like a party.

A low table was set with Champagne flutes and bottles chilling in ice buckets. The centerpiece was an elegant silver epergne crowned wit a swan made of ice, a cut glass dish of caviar held clasped between the wings of the swan. The upper arms of the epergne held cut glass dishes of chopped onion, sieved egg yolk, and curls of sweet butter, the lower ones held baskets of thinly sliced dark bread, and crunchy melba toast.

Trays of other hors d'oeuvres surrounded the elegant display. Stuffed mushrooms, tiny eggrolls, cheese puffs, skewers of bacon-wrapped shrimp fanned out, pate and crackers. Between the trays, the table was decorated with silk ivy and bowls of miniature marzipan fruit.

"Emma's certainly raised the tone of team meetings," Kurt said with a low whistle. "Scott used to just open a few bags of chips and pretzels and make onion dip."

Rachel looked over at Scott and Emma, noting that a certain group...the old guard...had been recalled for this meeting. Wolverine was talking to Rogue and Remy. Henry was leaning against a bookshelf. Peter and Kitty were by the fireplace.

Rachel winced. She'd never actually apologized for her behavior after bursting in on that intimate little tete a tete in front of the fire, not long after Peter's rescue.

She'd have to say something to both of them.

There was a brief babble of conversation, as teammates separated by duty greeted each other and commented on the room and the grazing station.

Scott cleared his throat for attention and everyone fell silent, expectant. "I'm glad we could all be here tonight. Usually we come together for tactical planning, only in times of defense or disaster... Tonight we come together in celebration..."

Rachel's eyes widened as a terrible thought struck her. Her erstwhile father was broadcasting the low level mental static telepaths could only block with some effort...fragments of subvocal thoughts, memory, emotion. The word, engagement, came through. Flashes of his wedding to Maddy Pryor. Regret. Hope.

"If he's marrying Emma, I'm moving to Schenectady and starting a psychic hotline," she muttered in an undertone to Kurt.

He swatted her lightly on the rump with his tail.

But the sudden flare of pure joy made her turn unexpectedly to the fireplace as Peter squared his shoulders and Kitty stepped up onto the hearth beside him.

"Katya has done me the honor of consenting to be my wife."

"We're getting married!" Kitty translated with a girlish squeal.

Storm's face lit up like a shaft of sunlight breaking through cloud cover. "Kitten! Little Brother! This is wonderful news!" She rushed forward to embrace them both in turn.

Kurt gave Kitty a quick hug and teased Peter about a long engagement, after their on again off again unrequited romance. Beast offered his congratulations and felicitations. Rogue joined Ororo and Kitty and made high pitched noises about the diamond ring, while Kurt, Logan, and Remy began loudly planning Peter's bachelor party and wondering how many strip clubs it was possible to hit in one night.

Rachel shook off the shock, walked over to Peter and gave him a hug, bouncing up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "This is fantastic, I'm so happy for you both."

Peter gave the best hugs. But instead of pulling her close, he held her stiffly, almost at arm's length, and there was a sadness in his eyes.

Are you? He didn't have to say it out loud. Rachel could hear the thought just fine, could see his memory of standing to greet her, the first time he had seen her since his abduction, and she'd...pushed him away.

"Da, Dyadyushka Piotr," she said quietly. Yes, Uncle Peter. In Russian. Soviet Russian, with a Siberian Baikal accent, just like his.

His expression softened at that. They were standing by the french doors. Rachel asked with a jerk of her head, and they stepped out of the party onto the cool stillness of the stone terrace. She looked up at his handsome face and tried to find some way to explain, to apologize.

"I always forget how dark your hair is," was what she came up with. "You were mostly salt with a dash of pepper by the time I was born and as far back as I can remember, it was iron gray that turned to dark pewter when you armored yourself."

"Rachel..."

She shook her head. "I was being a brat. And I never really apologized. For hurting you. Coming back from the dead is a damn running joke around here, but it's not. Funny," her voice broke.

"Rachel," he said again, and this time she was enveloped in one of those Peter-hugs she loved. Strong arms wrapped around you, gently, like he could and would protect you from all the world.

"The only reason I really knew Scott and Jean as my mom and dad is because you and Kate kept their memory for me in the camps. Before I was taken for Bloodhound training. Always telling me stories about when I was little, and the X Men." Tears were stinging her eyes now. She blinked them away and pulled back out of the hug, looking up into Peter's eyes and willing him to understand.

"They kept us separated most of the day, the men and women. So I was with Kate more. And then, when sending Kate back in time worked, and we changed things, and I ended up here/now...Kitty was my first friend. My best friend."

She took a breath. "And it was stupid, and selfish. But I had just been through a rough patch in the Savage Land, and I was looking forward to seeing Kitty, to having a little X Girls Gone Wild time...and when I walked into our room...and saw all my things were boxed up and she was having a romantic evening in front of the fire with you...I was jealous."

"Rachel," he cupped her face with his large hands and gently wiped away the tears with his thumbs. "You and Katya are close. I will never come between the two of you, I promise this."

"I believe you. But I'll still feel like a third wheel. And maybe that was part of it. Kitty got her true love back. Me? Franklin's seven years old. And none of my other relationships have exactly worked out. It feels like...like Kitty's all I have." Peter looked concerned, so Rachel mustered a grin. "And my Uncle Peter back."

"And perhaps," he said it gently, "you found some small comfort in my seeming death by the Legacy cure? It was one more thing different in this world from the hellish life you knew."

"No..." Rachel stared at him, shaken. "No, I never thought that!"

"Perhaps subconsciously?" he saw how disturbed she was by the thought and relented. "No. Perhaps not."

"So, you and Kitty are getting married," Rachel made an effort to lighten her tone. "Guess I'm a little too old to be the flowergirl this time around. Have you set a date?"

"In spring, nothing more definite."

XxXxXxXxXxX

"We haven't set a date yet. We still have some planning to do," Kitty told Ororo, and smiled. "I bet whatever day we pick, we'll have good weather."

The mutant known as Storm laughed. "Of course, Kitty. It will be one of my gifts to you both."

"When I was a kid," Kitty admitted wistfully, "I kinda had my heart set on an outdoor wedding on the school grounds, in the formal garden or out by the lake. But Peter and I haven't really talked about it yet."

Kurt grinned impishly. "Too busy planning the honeymoon?"

Kitty and Ororo rolled their eyes, used to Kurt.

Kurt was innocently protesting that he simply meant picking a location. Kitty tuned him out, watching as Peter and Rachel stepped outside. She frowned.

It still stung. But she could understand Rachel's reaction that day she'd returned from the Savage Land and found Peter was alive. That Ord had faked his death and held him captive for two years.

Peter came back from the dead.

So did Betsy.

Even Wisdom.

And Jean...always died again.

Leaving behind a loving daughter who never really got to know her mother.

It wasn't fair.

Kitty made her way across the room, accepting congratulations and pausing to show off the ring, then went out onto the terrace just as Rachel buried her face into Peter's shoulder and he pulled her into a tight embrace.

"You know, a girl could get awful jealous walking in on a scene like this, if she had less faith in her boy and best bud," she quipped.

Rachel took a step back, and Kitty could see that she'd been crying. "Oh, hey," she said, uncertainly, and glanced up at Peter, trying to lighten the moment. "Waterworks? I know Peter getting engaged is going to make some of the students cry..." Peter shifted his weight. Kitty shook a finger at him. "I know you don't encourage it, but face it fella. You came back all broody and angsty and hunky and you're this generation's Wolverine. Deal with it."

Rachel began to grin. "You're kidding?"

"Nope," Kitty heaved a theatrical sigh. "Teenagers! There are five Colossi-chicks who follow him around and giggle and sigh," she smirked at her blushing bride-groom to be. "Unfortunately Scott put a stop to the Real People Fanfic. Some of the pwps were giving me good ideas."

"Katya!"

"Our lives are very weird," Rachel announced, like that was news to anyone.

"And we wouldn't want it any other way," Kitty agreed, taking Peter and Rachel by their arms. "Now let's get back inside and hit that grazing station before all the gourmet goodies are gone."

They went back inside and dutifully sampled a few tidbits, mingling with the other guests.

Kitty watched Rachel and Kurt flirt without realizing that that was what they were doing, and shook her head, wishing for once her two dear friends would open their eyes and see each other, for their own sakes.

Then again, it had taken her and Peter long enough to get it together and get together. Glass houses.

The party started to wind down, and they retired amid catcalls and ribald remarks from the last of the guests.

Kitty chuckled as Peter climbed the main staircase slowly, blinking owlishly at his feet and keeping a hand on the banister rail.

"A tad tipsy, are we?"

"Champagne is sneaky," he declared. "Bubbles. No drink that has bubbles should make you drunk."

"Lightweight," she teased.

He gave a contemptuous snort. "Katya. I grew up drinking vodka we made from potatoes that wouldn't pass quality for our quota. Could take the rust off a nail, our vodka. Champagne, it is like lemonade. Too sweet. And full of bubbles."

Kitty laughed. "So you're saying a real drink tastes like the hangover you're going to have in the morning?"

"Da. Exactly."

Kitty just shook her head. "My room or yours?"

"My room, my bed."

"Your bed is comfy. Lockheed's getting spoiled. I've been sleeping over so much he's getting my bed all to himself, lazy dragon," she followed Peter into his bedroom and glanced around with a sigh. "and we need to look at the bedrooms Scott offered, and choose one to move into, which means deciding what furniture we're keeping. There's one that overlooks the back garden, and one in the East Wing, the light's probably better there for your painting..."

Peter stooped to kiss her. "I like this room best right now. You are in it."

"One track mind," she teased, and started taking off her shirt.

Peter started to undo the buttons of the light blue oxford he was wearing, then snarled. The combination of alcohol and the late hour making his large fingers clumsy. "Hold still," Kitty ordered. "Let me do that."

She could have just phased the clothing off of him, but there was something simple and seductive and satisfying about sliding each faux mother of pearl plastic button free.

Peter fell into bed in his boxer shorts, while Kitty retrieved a silky knee-length sleep shirt from the drawer of his bureau where some of her stuff had migrated. A few midnight emergencies and you soon learned an X Man didn't sleep in the nude or wearing anything you couldn't fight in.

She tossed it on, and joined Peter in bed. They kissed, and she sat up to turn off the light, set the alarm, and activate the psiproofing. She settled back into Peter's arms. He kissed her temple as she snuggled down with her head on his shoulder.

"So I guess I walked in on something pretty heavy between you and Rachel."

"Da. We made up. We left things strained between us too long," he sighed. "She feared you would have no time for her, with me back in your life. And I forget too easily what she went through in her native timeline...why your friendship is so important to her. We both understand better now."

"I love you," she sighed.

"I love you," he replied, and there was a pleasant interval.

"It was a nice engagement party, don't you think?" she asked sleepily.

"Very nice."

"Ororo cried. Happy tears. But hey. We made Ororo cry."

"She was always very kind to me when I was young, and had first left the farm to join the X Men, adopting me as her 'little brother'. And you were a daughter to Storm, her Kitten." Peter chuckled. "And I fear I am in for more appallingly fatherly advice from Logan on that bachelor night he and Kurt were plotting."

Kitty giggled and gave him a comforting pat on the chest, remembering Peter's aggrieved confession that when they'd first started dating, lo those many years ago...Peter had been a little nervous when Logan cornered him alone. Expecting the paternally protective older man to warn him off. Instead, to their mutual embarrassment, Wolverine had brought a Playboy and took it upon himself to give the inexperienced farmboy a practical lecture on the birds and bees.

It was definitely Logan-logic. He didn't mind if Peter slept with her as long as he knew how to show her a good time.

"I'm a little worried about Emma. She got this psycho-socialite gleam in her eyes when we started talking about the wedding arrangements," Kitty confessed. "I think I trusted her more when I thought she was evil."

Peter snorted. Kitty poked him.

"Don't think you're getting out of the decision making process just because it's girl stuff. We've got a zillion things to do."

"I know. I will help," he shifted a little, reaching up to adjust the pillow under his head. "Tomorrow we start to make lists."

"I need to go to the bookstore and get some of those bridal magazines. Martha Stewart. They probably have suggestions for things we haven't even thought of yet."

"You need to call your mother."

"I will."

"Tomorrow?"

"Okay. Tomorrow." Kitty hesitated, and snuggled a little closer to Peter. "And...there's someone else I should probably call," she added, tentatively.

There was a long moment of silence. "Wisdom."

"It wouldn't be fair. When I went on that mission with the new Excalibur team...it hurt him that you were back, that we were back together...and he had to hear it through official channels. I should tell him that I'm marrying you in person."

"You're right. You should call him."

The tone was flat, and soft. Kitty wasn't sure how to read it. Then he rolled over and kissed her, a very normal kiss, and she relaxed.

"Was he...was he good to you?" Peter asked abruptly. And although he didn't come out and say it, she knew what Peter meant. Pete Wisdom, her second love and first lover.

Kitty thought about the sarcastic, selfish, self-destructive Wisdom, and sat up in bed, hugging her knees. "Was he good to me?" she repeated the question. "Not...exactly. But he was good for me. Does that make sense? We both hated ourselves, but loved each other," she mused. "It wasn't exactly a healthy relationship for either of us. But it was real."

"I don't like him," Peter muttered, breaking her out of her reverie.

"Yeah, the way you smacked him around like a tetherball was a clue."

"I don't like him," Peter continued, doggedly, "but you loved him, once, and he is important to you. So if you want to invite him to the wedding..."

"Oh, no. I don't think he's the 'let's be friends' type," Kitty smiled, and settled herself back in Peter's arms. "Though it might be a good way to earn a little quick cash. He'd provoke you, you'd end up trying to smother him in the wedding cake, and I'd end up dumping a punch bowl over your heads like throwing a bucket of water on two fighting dogs. We'd send the tape to America's Funniest Wedding Videos and probably win the hundred grand."

Peter laughed at that, and on that note, they both settled down to sleep.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Peter was in the small storage room that had once been a walk-in closet, counting boxes of oil pastels when the first students came in for art class.

"Because it's totally romantic! They've been in love, like, forever. Since they were our age, even! And they broke up,and he joined the bad guys, and she left the X Men for another team, then he came back, and so did she, and there was the Legacy thing where everyone thought he died to save us all, but that Ord guy kidnapped him, and then they found out and she went and rescued him, and now they're getting married. It's, like, fate!"

Peter smiled, hearing his life recapped through innocent fifteen year old eyes.

"Colossus is so hawt. You think they'll have the wedding here? And we'll get to see him in a tuxedo?"

There was girlish squealing over that.

"So anybody get the latest Logan Pool? Which teacher is he gonna flip out and attack next?"

"I've got five dollars on Mister Summers. Cyclops is a sure bet."

"I dunno. It's been a while since he went after Doc McCoy."

"This lady my mom works with says her husband saw Wolverine fighting with Spider-man in the Bronx last weekend."

"Doesn't count."

"Off campus, not faculty, doesn't count."

"And, like, Wolverine moonlights as an Avenger. So, was he fighting with Spider-man, or fighting, with Spider-man? So it doesn't count."

"Aw crap. The glue didn't work."

"The glue?"

"The glue! My project. My collage. Half of it fell off. Stupid glue."

"The Thing collage with the broken terra cotta pieces? I told you that was too heavy."

"I gotta ask for an extension. And some superglue."

Peter stepped out of the supply closet, and the students went quiet. "Good morning, class. Today we are going to have a free day. Those of you who wish to add finishing touches to your projects may do so, those of you who are finished and would like to get a head start on tonight's reading..."

XxXxXxXxXxX

Kitty grabbed a quick sandwich at dinner, and then went to her bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at the phone.

She got up, dug a quarter out of her purse, and flipped the coin. Heads she'd call her mother first, tails Wisdom.

Tails it was. She dialled the contact number she had for him, waited for the identification and verification process, for the call to be rerouted and triple encoded.

A woman answered. Wisdom got the phone away from her after a few incoherent pouts and giggles.

"Hullo Missus Rasputin."

"You knew?"

"Way we left things, luv. Knew I might run into Shadowcat again on some official misadventure someday, but I'd never talk to Kit again, unless she was telling me she'd tied the knot with the soddin' man of steel," he gave a humorless laugh, "or the fickle fellow'd run off again and she was hoping to console herself in my waiting arms."

"Waiting arms?" she asked dryly.

"Tcha, blondes don't count."

Kitty filed that comment away for future use on Emma, and laughed softly. "Well, you were right the first time, near enough. Piotr and I are getting married."

"He making you happy, luv?"

"Very much so, yes."

"Well. All right, then. Do me one favor?" He paused, and she made an inquiring noise, warily wondering what that favor was, and half afraid he was going to ask her to delay the wedding and give him a second chance. "Gain a hundred pounds, become a nagging shrew, and make his life bloody miserable? For me?"

"Pete."

"Goodbye, Katherine."

She took a breath. "Goodbye," and ended the call. She flopped back on the bed, bonelessly, drained by the short but emotionally charged conversation.

"Right, Kitty. Let's get this over with," she said out loud, counted to ten, and called her mother.

"Hey mom, it's Kitty,"

"Kitty? Is everything all right?"

"Yes," she started, but was interrupted.

"Because this isn't really a good time, dear. I'm showing a house and my clients just went into the yard right now...why don't I call later when I can chat?"

"Okay. You remember Peter Rasputin? Colossus?"

"The Russian boy you had such a crush on, yes?"

"Yes. Um. We've been dating, and, uh, erm...we're getting married."

"Married! Kitty!"

"So! You go back to your clients, and we'll talk later tonight. Okay? Bye!" Kitty hung up, and immediately turned off her cell phone before her mother could call back, flopping again across the bed with a sigh.

After fifteen minutes she checked her voice mail and saw she had twenty three new messages from her mother. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and let the phone ring again. And answered it.

"Are you pregnant?"

"Mom! No! Geez, why would you even ask that?"

"Why? I don't know, Kitty, you call up out of the clear blue sky and you tell me that you are marrying this man, and I don't know what to think. What about college? Your plans to go back and finish your degree?"

"I'm still planning to do that."

Her mother sighed. "It's just. Oh honey, you're terribly young to get married."

Kitty smiled a little wistfully, "not that young." On the collective farm where Peter had been born, it wasn't unheard of to marry at fourteen. A farming community in the backwoods of Siberia needed large families to handle the workload of survival, and the earlier the start the better. When they'd first started dating, there'd been a bit of a culture clash over that, Peter gamely trying to treat the young woman he'd fallen in love with as the child American custom labeled her, although she'd been chafing against those restrictions herself.

"I don't want you to make a mistake," Kitty's mouth tightened at the unspoken like I did at the end of that sentence. "Of course, I don't really know Peter, so I can't say if I approve. I've only met the boy a few times."

"Maybe you could come up for a while, before the wedding? Get to know him, see the school, all of that?"

There was a silence, and Kitty swallowed sudden anger and offered, "or we could come down to Chicago, I can take him to Deerfield and show him where I grew up."

"No...I think maybe I should come up there and see the Xavier's place. It's been such a big part of your life."

Kitty's heart leaped at this, and sank again as her mother went on with new enthusiasm. "Speaking of Deerfield, do you remember Myra's son Tom? He's an orthodontist now, has his own practice, doing very well for himself. What kind of salary does superheroics bring in? You can't live on love alone, you know."

"Oh, being an X Man is more of a public service. We both teach here, and Xavier's pays very competitively with other top private schools. And Peter's making a name for himself in the art world. His last gallery show sold out, and the big canvases are going for ten thousand, so..."

"ten...thousand...dollars?"

"And a publishing company has been after him to do some commission work, they want paintings of alien worlds the X Men have visited, for some kind of coffee table book." Kitty told herself that it was immature to take such delight in surprising her mother and deflating her next argument and assumptions. But she did, anyway.

"Oh. Well. That's good to hear. Money can't buy happiness, but it can certainly smooth out some of the rough spots."

"I know, Mom. I'm not rushing into anything. We've crunched the numbers on getting a house, and starting a family, all of that. We're not going to starve."

"I haven't actually said congratulations yet, have I?"

"Nope."

"It's just that I worry. I worry about you so much, and most of the time I don't even know you've been in danger until it makes CNN. The possibility of a bad marriage...well, that's something I understand better than Sentinel robots or reality altering witches. Let me arrange my schedule, and I'll come out to Westchester and meet your Peter, yes? See if he's good enough for my little girl. I remember...when you interviewed for the school, and your first Hanukkah there, he seemed polite and personable."

"I'll call you this weekend and we can arrange the visit. Mom, you're going to love Peter. He's wonderful."

"He must be, if a wonderful girl like my Kitty loves him enough to marry him."

"He is."

"Bye, sweetie. We'll talk this weekend."

"Bye, Mom."

XxXxXxXxXxX

Peter had done a load of laundry and was moving stacks of underwear, rolled tube socks, and folded pajamas from the basket on the top of his dresser to their appropriate drawers. Kitty walked in, walked across the room to his desk, turned the chair around and straddled it, resting her arms on the chair back and her chin on her folded arms.

"I made my phone calls."

"Ah."

"Wisdom wished us well...in his own way," her lip curled slightly. "Mom flipped out."

"Ah."

"She flipped out, and she apologized for flipping out and congratulated us, and she wants to come visit and get to know you. And, by get to know you, I of course mean judging every miniscule aspect of my life for something she can disapprove of. Won't that be fun?"

Peter frowned. "You think your mother will disapprove of our marriage?"

Kitty shrugged listlessly.

"Will...do you think she will disapprove of me? Because I am not Jewish?"

Kitty sat bolt upright at that. "Uh, specifically, yes. You aren't Tommy Schlamie."

Peter raised his eyebrows at that, and Kitty sighed deeply. "My mom...on some level my mom really believed that all this...this X Man mutant superhero activist stuff was just a...phase...I was going through," she smiled sourly at her pun. "and I'd outgrow it, come home and marry the son of one of her friends, and pretend like I'm a normal person."

"I see." Peter said, bemused.

Kitty waved her hands. "Mom and I were never...I was a Daddy's Girl. And since I joined the team and they got divorced, she and I...she wants to get to know you, but the truth of it is that she doesn't really know ME. She's just got this mental image of what she wants her daughter to be labeled 'Kitty' in her head. And she's never been good at dealing with the fact that the picture doesn't match up with reality."

"Katya," Peter moved over to sit at the foot of his bed. "Come here."

She joined him, received a kiss, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "It'll be fine. She'll love you. Moms always love you. You couldn't have a better future son-in-law if you ordered him from a catalog. I'm just..."

"Flipping out?"

"Making myself crazy," she corrected. She closed her eyes, swallowed, and then looked up at Peter with a bright smile. "Hi honey. How was your day?"

"Not bad. Lie down, and I'll rub your back?"

"Oh, I love you."

"I love you."

The tension and tight muscles in Kitty's neck and back melted under Peter's strong fingers. She relaxed, moaning and murmuring appreciatively. One thing led to another. They kissed and undressed each other, making love.

Peter found himself pitching forward slightly as the thigh he'd been leaning against vanished suddenly.

He groaned softly, and sat up, opening his eyes. The bed was empty, and he was alone in his bedroom.

Smiling to himself and shaking his head, Peter rolled over and moved up on the bed, climbing under the covers and tucking a pillow under his head.

He yawned, and looked at the door expectantly.

And waited.

Panting, Kitty dashed through the closed door and stopped, glaring at him, and clutching her improvised garment around herself with both hands. It was something of a toga-like wrap, of an appealing silvery white gauze.

"Peter Nikolievitch! You've got to stop doing that thing with your tongue, no wait, you've got to start warning me before you do that thing with your tongue. This is just getting embarrassing."

"Is that a drapery sheer?"

"That isn't the point."

"I'm sorry, Katya," he said unrepentantly.

"You are not," she pouted, dropped her curtain and crawled back into bed. "You think this is funny."

"So did you, our first time."

"Yeah, well, you're not the one trying not to flash random students," Kitty paused, and giggled. "okay. Still funny."

Peter grinned and kissed his fiancee.


	3. Battle Plans

Happily Ever After

By Madripoor Rose

Chapter Three: Battle Plans

A position in the jewelry department of the Carlisle Auction House was not precisely inducive to a quiet life. There were occasional robbery attempts by members of New York's more...colorful...criminal element...there had been a few consignments that were either inherently magical, cursed, or the misplaced property of mythological creatures or alien races.

And then there were the clients. The nouveau riche, the established families...the celebrities...New York's particular celebrities. Justin had risen to his position as head of the Jewelry Department at the Carlisle Auction House by maintaining a certain relationship with the New York set. One of his underlings was on a permanent assignment to Fabrege auctions, spearheading Natasha Romanov's attempt to reclaim her family treasures. If the Juggernaut ever decided to pawn the Crimson Gem Of Cyttorak, he would come to the Carlisle. And Justin knew exactly how much Emma Frost was worth dead. By carat weight.

Despite his scrupulous discretion, word got around. So Justin wasn't precisely surprised when Wolverine of the X Men appeared one day, asking for him.

He had Patrice take him to one of the meeting rooms and give him coffee while he did a quick review of the X Men. Charles Xavier was believed dead again, at the moment. In any case, most of the family pieces had been looted by that dreadful fortune hunter the mother had married. There were of course the Worthington Emeralds, the Braddock Pearls...but nothing currently stolen or rumored to be on the market.

A cool professional smile pasted on his lips, Justin went out to meet his first X Man.

Wolverine proved to be shorter than he expected, and surprisingly blunt. "I want you to track down jewelry belonging to the Howlett family of Alberta Canada, around 1900. There was a pearl choker with a cameo, and sapphires and diamonds. The old man was a mining baron, so there's probably more stuff, but them two in particular. I want to know if they're still in one piece and if the owner's willing to sell."

There were a few small details to be dealt with, and Justin settled down to his newest commission with enthusiasm. Research was first, getting the names of the Howlett family of the period, and then cross checking with the archives of prominent jewelers. It would, he assured Wolverine, take some time, but he was quite sure one of the family pieces could be located.

He didn't ask why Wolverine wanted it done.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kitty had spent the day shopping and doing a little scouting for touristy stuff she could do with her mother during the impending visit. Logan had volunteered to drive into the city on some mysterious business of his own. Which Kitty didn't actually believe in. Logan had been getting mushy---well, mushy for Logan---over her engagement to Piotr. Wanting to spend some time alone in the car with her and fighting over radio stations was pretty Logan-mushy.

On the drive back she was expecting another gruff comment that he was happy they were so happy, another offer to kick Piotr's ass if he went astray, and then he'd change the subject and talk hockey for the last half hour of the drive.

At the Starbucks where they were to meet, Kitty treated herself to an overpriced cup of coffee while she waited. Keeping an eye on her shopping bags, she wondered how Piotr was going to react to the little surprise she'd picked up for him.

It was an unwritten rule in the X Men that you always slept in something suitable for battle or the 11:00 pm news. Kitty's personal taste had been toward comfort. The wispy bit of lace she'd bought wouldn't be worn for long, and she'd also gotten a new set of brushed sateen pajamas to change into afterward.

She realized that she was staring off into space with a silly grin. She reached for her coffee cup, and let the light catch her engagement ring, making it sparkle. 

Mrs. Piotr Rasputin. Mrs. Kitty Rasputin. Kitty Pryde-Rasputin. She'd practiced writing her married name a million times when she was a girl. Now that she was actually marrying the guy you'd think it would be easier to pick one. Keeping her maiden name. Taking his. Hyphenating.

There were still so many details to be planning. They needed to get together and make a list. Granted, things had been pretty grim lately and the wedding was captivating everyone's attention as something to look forward to, and snowballing out of control.

She missed Emma Frost's usual behavior toward her. The cool disdain and catty sniping. Compared to the recent Martha Stewart On Crack personality change.

She'd tried warning Scott that Emma was going evil again, but he just laughed and claimed the upcoming Pryde-Rasputin nuptials had awakened Emma's Inner Event Planner.

Whatever. Kitty had asked her for her opinion on one bridesmaids' dress design, just to be polite, and now she had swatches of silk being imported from Italy.

Kitty picked at what was left of the blueberry scone she'd had with the coffee, and wondered if she and Piotr could just sign out the Blackbird and elope. Vegas, or Niagra Falls. Get married by an Elvis impersonator.

She'd wanted a simple wedding in the mansion's garden. Not a mutant media event.

"Hey Pun'kin. Get your shopping done?"

She looked up to grin at Logan. The childhood nicknames were coming up more frequently. Mushy.

"I'm done. You finish that top-secret errand of yours?"

He nodded. "Got your stuff?"

Kitty gathered up her shopping bags and started to get up. "Do you want to get a coffee to go?" she asked, teasingly. He snorted.

"Darlin', if you can't tar a roof with it, it ain't coffee. Let's get on the road."

Overpriced coffee and pompous baristas occupied Logan's conversation until they got to parking structure where they'd left the car. Kitty merely had to make agreeing noises whenever he stopped for breath.

The drive back to the school went as predicted. They reached Xavier's shortly before dinner. The students were taking advantage of the nice weather to study or play outside. Kitty got upstairs to her room without running into anyone except Lockheed, sprawled across the pillows of her bed with possessive glee, sound asleep.

She rarely bothered to sleep in her own bedroom. Instead, it had become a glorified walk-in closet. She knew she was going to miss the space once they were married and moved into one of the suites Scott had the architect build into the last remodel of the mansion.

Kitty glanced down at the bags she'd just dropped on the foot of the bed, at her open closet door and the packed row of clothes on hangers and the shoe-boxed stacked on the shelf. She looked at the bookcases stacked with books and DVDs and CDs, and at her dresser top, buried under jewelry and cosmetics.

"I'm going to have to do a major decluttering before Peter and I move in together, too. Junk sure piles up fast," she sighed.

Kitty glanced at the stack of bridal magazines on her nightstand, and the decorated notebook a couple of her girlier-girl students had made her, for wedding plans. The cover was decoupaged with a picture of Piotr kissing her, framed in a heart shaped border of clip-art roses, doves, and wedding bells.

She decided to go find Piotr, and get him to sit down with her and look through some of the magazines. She headed out to look for him. One of his art students told her that he was in the attic of the north wing. 

Speaking of decluttering. The mansion might have been completely rebuilt several times over the years, but the attics never stayed empty for long. When Kitty was a girl, it had been mazes of mysterious boxes and trunks, except for the servants dormitory that Ororo claimed for her garden loft.

Now it was home to odds and ends, old furniture, textbooks for the school, boxes of possessions left behind by those who came and went, discarded souvenirs from off-world or other dimensions.

She found Piotr at last, under one of the skylights, going through a large cardboard box with his name scrawled in sharpie on the side.

"Hey Peter. Whatcha got there?" she stared, surprised, at the box and several like it stacked nearby.

"Hello Katya. Enjoy your shopping? Scott recalled that some of my belongings that had been in storage were brought here. I am looking to see what is salvagable."

"Oh cool. I didn't think you had any of your old stuff any more. Find anything interesting?"

He smiled and picked up a drape of red cloth folded on one of the unopened boxes, shaking it out. His old red University Of Siberia tee-shirt. The yellow lettering had faded almost white, but the crest with the brown bear, star, and crescent moon was still bright and vibrant. He hadn't gone to school there, had left to join the X Men as a teenager. It had been a present from an aunt who taught there.

"I found some clothing. They will have to be laundered, but still wearable, I think." Finding clothing to fit Piotr's height and heavily muscled frame was still a bit of a problem, although there were specialty stores in the city. "Ah, and my Ambassador hat," he held up the fur hat and swatted it lightly to knock dust loose and fluff up the fur a bit.

"Want some help?"

"Pick a box," he waved vaguely.

"We need to look at some wedding stuff tonight," she warned him, and opened one of the boxes. His old wooden paint box was right at the top, and some books on painting. Old sketchbooks. She flipped through one. Seascapes. Muir Island, Brighton Beach. Another, close studies of wildflowers.

The third...had a different color cover. And was...

Naked people. Women. Naked women.

Ororo, a very good likeness. A slim blonde. Two girls with the mohawked hair of the Fall People in the Savage Land. And then...herself. Drawn reclining, not quite nude at first, filmy draperies covering her...Lockheed's wings and tail in a pastiche of that famous poster of Nastassia Kinski with a boa constrictor.

A few pages of her completely naked, looking coyly back over her shoulder, or a side view of her seated with her knees drawn up. Drawings of herself as she was at fourteen, paired with guesses of what she'd look like older. More filled out.

Piotr had overestimated cup size, a bit.

She looked up. Piotr was pretending not to have noticed, a Converse All Star sneaker in one hand, he dug through a box looking for its mate. Blushing faintly.

Kitty turned another page and old pain quenched her amusement like a bucket of ice water.

Waist-length mane of hair, sharply oval, almost feline face with large almond shaped eyes.

Zsaji.

Her rival.

The alien healer really had been beautiful.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned to the next page. More pictures of Kitty. And in some of them, Piotr, joining her. Kissing her. Holding her in his arms. The rest of the pages were blank.

Piotr had told her that he'd begun to regret breaking up with her over Zsaji's memory almost immediately. She'd never quite believed him until now.

She looked up at Piotr again. He was definitely blushing. It was really rather sweet. "Is this what I think it is?" she asked him, lightly.

"Figure studies. I was practicing poses, portraits..."

"Playboy," she said flatly. "You drew your own Playboy."

"Da," he said sheepishly. "It was mostly for the drawing practice...but also a little secret thrill, to be drawing nudes."

"Hm. You were a little overly generous with me. Hoping I'd fill out more?"

"Nothing like that!" he protested. "You were still young, growing. You have filled out a bit more."

"And you were just guessing because I never posed for you..." she hesitated. "I want to pose for you."

He gave her a tentative smile. "I would like that," he said, and they went back to work digging through boxes, unpacking them, and sorting out what he wanted to keep, packing the things he didn't want back into the storage boxes.

Kitty whistled at the end of it. "Seven pairs of pants, three pairs of shoes, twelve shirts, five sweaters, a coat and hat. That's a better haul than I got from a day in the department stores! Not bad!"

Piotr put a stack of old paperbacks in the small box with his clothes. "And I think I will reread these before adding them to the school library."

He carried the box down to his room, and it was time to wash up after the dust and cobwebs of the attic, for supper.

They were seated at different tables in the dining hall. There were enough students for each table to need an adult to supervise. Piotr had to deal with a brief food-fight among the younger students at his table. He gave her a helpless look as he marched them off to a detention time-out before dessert. She waved him on.

After dinner, Kitty went back to her room and put away her new things. Then plopped on the foot of her bed and flipped idly through one of the bridal magazines. Lockheed had departed to pester the kitchen staff for scraps.

She decided that the wedding notebook was too nice to write in when she was going to be doing a lot of scratching out and starting over, so she retrieved a plain notebook and pen from her desk, and made a nest out of the pillows against the headboard, getting comfortable in the middle of the bed.

She opened the notebook and stared at the blank white page for a long moment, then she wrote;

Wedding dress and shoes

Tux for Piotr

That totally counted as wedding planning. She could quit now. For the day. Noone would blame her.

She wrote;

Talk to Piotr about ceremony. Civil ceremony, Kurt presiding, or does 'a Jewish girl, her Atheist boyfriend getting married by a Catholic ex-priest' sound too much like the opening line of a joke?

Nibbling on the cap of the pen for a moment, she added,

If Kurt officiates and Logan walks me down the aisle, who is Piotr's best man? Kurt and Logan are his best buds.

I wish Illyana was here to be my matron of honor.

Kitty reread that and immediately scratched it out so that Piotr would never have to see it. She reread the entire list, then tore the page off the spiral binding, balled it up and tossed it in the general direction of the wastebasket.

On a fresh, clean page she wrote:

Wedding dress and shoes.

Tuxedo for Piotr.

Ceremony/writing our own vows?

Wedding party/who officiates?/Best Man, Matron of Honor, 'Father' of Bride, ring bearer, flower girl, bridesmaids and groomsmen.

Tuxes for groomsmen and dresses for bridesmaids.

Catering/Wedding cake.

Guests.

Reading it over, Kitty nodded to herself. This was good, this was a real outline of what she needed to discuss with Piotr, and it didn't really make sense to get too many details nailed down before her mother's visit. She'd just feel hurt and left out if Kitty didn't involve her in the planning process.

On the other hand, if she wasn't careful, her mother would take over the planning entirely and she and Piotr might find themselves getting married back in Deerfield with only distant relatives and her mother's friends in attendance.

Feeling like she'd accomplished something, Kitty set the notebook aside and settled down with one of her new science fiction novels she'

d bought that morning.

Almost two hours later, there was a tap at the door and Piotr entered. "I am sorry, my love, I had to put the children on kitchen duty and watch over their work. You wanted to do some planning for our wedding?"

She sat up, grabbing a bookmark off the nightstand, and put her novel down, trading it for the notebook, and patted the bed beside her. Piotr sat obediently, leaning down for a quick kiss.

She showed him the list. "We've made a start on planning, but nothing's finalized. We need to start settling details," she explained.

"Like our honeymoon," Piotr suggested with a playful leer. "You do not have planning a honeymoon written down on this list."

"Okay," she uncapped the pen and added Plan Honeymoon to the list. "Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?"

"Somewhere we can be alone. No students, no alerts in the middle of the night…" he added a bit wistfully, and Kitty smothered a grin. The last time anti-mutant zealots had attacked the school in the middle of the night had interrupted an intimate moment, and Colossus had thrown them back over the wall with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. "…maybe a nice quiet, romantic bed and breakfast somewhere in the country, near the mountains or the shore. Or a city. A boutique hotel, somewhere with museums and restaurants."

"Hm. Long romantic walks on a beach…" Kitty mused, letting her imagination take over. "…at sunset."

"It does not matter so much to me where we go, so long as we have some time alone together," Piotr added, leaning down to kiss the nape of her neck.

"Peter, no necking. Wedding," she tapped the end of the pen pointedly against the notebook.

He made a small murmur of protest, but obediently sat up. "Miami? There are the art deco hotels and restaurants and beaches where you could wear a bikini."

"Ooh! Yes! I'll get online and do some price checking." Kitty wrote Miami down in the notebook under Honeymoon, and underlined it. "But we'd better make some backup plans…spas, resorts, mountains, deserts…I'll find the nicest places for the best price for each and we can pick from the list." Kitty added a couple of website urls and search terms. "Dresses and Tuxes have to wait…we're not having a religious ceremony, do you want to write our own vows?"

Silence.

She looked up questioningly. Piotr gave her a lopsided grin. "Katya, you know I am not so good with words."

"Your proposal wasn't half bad," she smiled up at him.

"Da, and do you know how many years I had to work on it?"

She smirked. "You've been daydreaming about marrying me since I was fourteen and you never thought about the vows, huh?"

"I mostly skipped from proposing and your yes, to you in white satin dress and the wedding night," he confessed.

Kitty shook her head ruefully, "and you seemed like such a nice boy."

"I am a nice boy," he retorted. "I fantasized about marrying you first."

She snorted. "I'll look up nontraditional vows on the internet, there's probably something we can adapt," she jotted that down.

"No quotes from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, if you please. I am not saying sex poodle in front of the other X Men and your mother."

"Ah, my love, you know me so well," she chortled. "Nah, Xander left Anya at the altar, remember? But I might suggest a Star Trek costume theme. Just to watch Emma's head explode."

"Ah, she is still suggesting designers?"

"And being nice. It's creepy. I don't think Emma came back with us from the Breakworld. SWORD planted a life model decoy. Scott's used to so much of her being plastic, he wouldn't notice."

"Katya…"

"I know! I used to say that sort of stuff to Emma's face and she'd fight back! Now she just gets this hurt look in her eyes and she's no fun any more," she complained lightly. Kitty knew there was a reason for Emma's attempts to make amends. Michael. She just wasn't quite ready to forgive her.

And she certainly didn't want to think about it while she was starting to plan what everybody kept telling her was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.

"I think that's enough for tonight. We've got the honeymoon almost sorted out, a couple of minutes of research left and that's it," Piotr suggested. "We've made a start."

"Peter, it's barely eight o'clock, we've only been working…."she trailed off and raised an eyebrow. "You brought that sketchbook downstairs. And you stopped to look at it after kitchen duty."

He gave her a sheepish smile. "You did not think I captured you so well. I wanted to refresh my memory and see what errors I made."

She looked at him.

"And also I found watching you look at nude pictures I've drawn of you to be unbelievably hot."

"You used to be such a nice boy, and now you're a sex maniac. What happened?" She closed the notebook and capped the pen.

Piotr grinned, pulling off his shirt. "You remember how you used to chase after me? Tag, you're it."


End file.
